Front wings, doors and bonnet refabrication.

Front off side wing.

The offside front wing, on inspection, showed signs of considerable degredation. However it was considered that with some refabrication and new metal letting in, it was saveable. I placed some importance on this, seeing as it is the original wing.

The first indication of trouble. Bubbling over the top and side of the front end. This is all due to moisture retention behind the bracket at the rear in the nose of the wing.

This one here, shown upside down. Awful isn't it.

Undoing the spot welds releases the bracket, thus. Some head scratching resulted in the decision that much of this needed remaking.

The full horror of what was lurking behind that bracket in the nose of the wing. Deep pitting had occurred and the decision was made to remove the whole section, because of this.

The bubbling on the wing was due to these pinholes. It was very thin.

One big hole.

Lining up a new piece of steel to fit the hole. Each surface has an element of compound curving, necessitating a tickle with the English Wheel on each face.

Getting there. Magnetic darts are useful for holding in place!

Ready for tacking into place.

Like this.

After seaming up and flush grinding, the return piece was added to the inside.

After flush grinding, it looked pretty good, but not good enough. There are some slight dimples and undulations in the surface. The bumps in the nose are a correction of an old dent which had been filled. This is to be dealt with too.

Therefore what has now become standard practice here, for such repairs, lead loading was carried out, with the result below, showing a virtually perfect finish, ready for high build primer.

The inside of the nose was treated to a cold galv spray before any other coating. Plastidip Hard Coat would later be applied to all inside surfaces as chip resisting finish coat.

Next, that nose bracket had to be rebuilt. New sections had to be made, left and top in the picture below, to be attached to the remaining original bit, centre, which was still sound.

And on reassembly.

After reassembly into the wing. This was after the lower edge was replaced, described next.

As can be seen, the lower front edge flange is shot completely. A new piece was made up using the wheel and shrinker / stretcher, and was a good fit. The internal joint can be seen in the above picture, and the piece before installation, below.

The lower edge after lead loading and final profiling.

Rear end of front wing.

This is the rear bottom corner, shown upside down. The hole is the lower fixing hole in the base of the A pillar. The whole area is severly degraded with rust.

The only way to deal with it is to remove the whole bracket.

First, the bottom rear edge had to be replaced as it was full of deep pits with pin holing through.

Next, the bottom end of the bracket had to be replaced as it was ragged with rust.

A good fit. A small repair has also been made to the section around the fixing hole as can be seen here.

After seaming and grinding flush.

The new bottom corner after lead loading.

Applying a few coats of Plastidip HCF to the inner faces of the wing, before reassembly of the bracketry.

Driver's side door.

To recap, the door shell needed edge repairs, and the skin needed new corners and a new section right along the bottom.

Repaired door shell is painted inside in the vulnerable areas, with Plastidip HCF to seal against moisture attack etc. It is then ready to receive the repaired skin.

The skin repair was started first by replacing the corners, with the bottom edge in place, so as to maintain the correct depth. Here, the rest of the section has subsequently been removed, and a new section fabricated. These are seen on top of the skin.

Ditto the other corner.

Lining up the bottom edge for welding.

Skin now repaired and fitted back onto the door shell. Door fitted to car for finishing and gap setting etc.

Detail of rear corner repair to door skin.

Off the car again for dressing with lead.

With the front wing on, prepping of the door, wing and rear quarter is undertaken as one, so as to guarantee good fit and lining up. Some stripping of paint has taken place here, on the off side.

Last view in bare metal before building up commences. This is continued on the "spit to polish" page.

Near Side Door.

Here, the skin and door shell are shown cleaned off and coated with HCF. The door skin was in better condition than the off side one and only needed some sections of the turned over flange replacing, which can be seen in the below picture, already treated with lead, and a small corner repair.

Small corner repair before coating. Lead work visible on bottom flange.

Inside of near side door shell. This was a new door at some fairly early stage. The skin has similar layers of paint as does the rest of the car, but the inside was shop black primer, whereas the driver's door was painted original green inside. This one, therefore has been painted in HCF to preserve it.

The lock hole on the near side had become ragged and too big, so some edge welding was done to reduce the hole size in the right places, and this was then dressed in lead. It isn't round, as it shouldn't be, so that the lock won't revolve. It is nice and tight in this hole.